


Chrome

by metal_eye



Series: Songfics [4]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF, Kris Allen (Musician)
Genre: Extramarital Affairs, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Religious Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2019-01-20 13:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12434247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metal_eye/pseuds/metal_eye
Summary: Shit gets real.





	Chrome

**Author's Note:**

> Final sequel to Bitter-Sweet and Give Me Tonight. Written during the Idol tour. I didn't even ~know things back then, but now I'm a bit shocked at how right I may have been. (circa 2011)

_So let us be done with this._  
 _You said, I want you, I don’t want another._  
 _—_ Nicole Blackman, ‘Chrome’

 

“Seriously, I love you guys, but it’s kind of awkward, I guess.”

There was a palpable silence. Kris looked at Anoop and said, “Honestly, I thought you would be the last person to have issues.”  
  
“Issues with with what?”  
  
Adam had entered the room – the bus bunk section, which was smaller than a real room but still effectively sectioned.  
  
Kris looked at him, tried to smile. But as Adam glanced at Matt and then Anoop, he collected the situation as easily as a child stumbling upon shells.  
  
“Look,” Kris tried — but it was done.  
  
“Yeah, look, I’ll ride on the fucking girls’ bus, all right?” Adam snapped. He looked around, but there was no nearby suitcase for him to grab, no shoes to pick up, so he had to make do with his iPod, iPhone, and a bookmarked copy of _Dangerous Angels._  
  
“We didn’t mean—” Matt began.  
  
“Shut up,” said Kris. “Just… shut up.”  
  
He followed Adam.

 

  
Buses never seemed too big until you were trying to find someone behind one—trying to  
see over it, under it, like an astronaut in awe of a metal planet, taking in the view but in need of something else, some other space beyond.  
  
He found Adam with his head against the door.  
  
“Adam,” Kris said.  
  
“What,” Adam said.

Kris tried not to remember experiments, hotel rooms, clothes kept on, or broken _what ifs_ … and failed. “I’ll come with you.”  
  
“What the fuck,” Adam said. “You have no reason to.”  
  
“Yes I do.”  
  
“Forget it.”  
  
“No. You are not going to be kicked out. This is not going to be some kind of _exile._ This is not a Bible story. This is real life.”  
  
They were on the back end of the bus – the long side – next to the entrance, by the luggage carriers. The doors were closed. Sleeping arrangements had already been bartered, already claimed.  
  
“Did you tell them,” Adam asked, not even forming the question with proper inflection – expecting memory instead.  
  
Kris shook his head. “No.”  
  
“Do you hate me.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Do you feel like you OWE me something?”  
  
“God, no.”  
  
The conversation jerked around like they were on the highway hitting potholes.  
  
“It’s never going to be easy,” Adam said. “Not like this. It’s not like we can hold hands on street corners.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“And when the tour is over—”  
  
“Stop. Don’t go that far. We’re still against the bus. We’re still right here.” Kris was almost desperate now. He stepped up and pushed Adam against the bus’s cold metal, just above the double wheels. “I’ll admit that I was messing around, before now. Maybe it was to test myself. But... I’m not messing around anymore.”  
  
Adam sighed, blue eyes electric. The bus door seemed to collect energy, seemed to amass particles behind him like a chemical cloak of honor. The moment lingered, then slowly lapsed.  
  
“I mean…” Kris said, softly, trying to keep the silence from threatening. “You’re you, and you’re amazing, and when I was growing up, some pastors tried to beat it out of me, mentally... that I could like guys that way. And I love God, but not the same God they do. Not the one that thinks I’m wrong, for…”

“… for what?”  
  
“Falling a little in love with you. Or maybe even a lot.” Kris hiccupped. “I didn’t even mean to.”

“You never do.” Pause. “Well… me, too. But you knew that already.”

“I did?”

“You must have.” Adam was blushing. He looked so innocent and third-grade. It was adorable. “You’re perfect and brilliant, and I love you. I shouldn’t, but I do.”

The bus whined. The drivers were about to leave, and the wheels were feeling the pressure.  
“So what happens now?”

Kris took a breath. “Like I said before… I don’t know. I’m not trying to ignore anything. I didn’t care, on Idol. But there was no one else around us, so it felt… safe. Like we were on a different planet.”

_It doesn’t matter. Not tonight._

“Now we’re on earth. On tour, close up. People can tell what’s going on. And I thought before that I would change things, around them. I thought I would say, well, that is the wrong thing to do. And maybe I am wrong – about you, about God, about everything. Maybe I’m supposed to love my wife and live happily ever after. Maybe I fucked up.”

The word slipped out before Kris could stop it. It wasn’t his style, but then, he wasn’t sure he had a style anymore. So he kept going.

“Maybe I’ll get punished, in the end. But now that I’ve fucked up, I’ve got no brakes on this, and I can’t stop it. Because I think you’re just about perfect, too, and I can’t control that. I can’t.”

Kris’s voice broke at that, like he was a nervous little kid. And with it broke all façade. There was nothing set on sexuality, circumstance, or even the past – often a killer.  
  
_Sometimes things happen. Sometimes we are helpless._  
  
He and Adam just looked at each other, counting the seconds. Wondering whey they had lied, cajoled, protected, expected – even taken awkward interviews in stride.  
  
“God,” Kris said, not even sure whom he was speaking to. “You might not get this, but I’m not even drunk and I’m acting on instinct.”  
  
“Oh, I get it. It’s like being a kid again – not thinking about consequences.”  
  
“Yes.” Kris paused.  
  
“C’mere,” said Adam, only this time it was for something beyond comfort.  
  
The vehicle was so hard behind Adam’s back that Kris felt like he was kissing metal. But the bus was still comforting, somehow. The hard wall kept him from driving past everything into the middle of nowhere— past judgement, promises, premade attachments.

So Kris had to settle for hard metal—hiplocking against the steel that was there to protect him against this person who had defied his entire conscience. It was a vise, holding him in place. He knew that love’s indifference could only go so far. But he wanted to ride it, for now. Ride as far as this bus’s hard angles, its stale, straight sides; as far as its dull, deft chrome.


End file.
